


The Strand Of An Infinite Moment

by DarkAbyss



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Existential Talks, Gen, Interdimentional travel, Minor Spoilers For Spn S14, That Aren't Taken Seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 19:57:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21282407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAbyss/pseuds/DarkAbyss
Summary: [Star Trek: The Next Generation & Supernatural crossover]After the events of season 13, Gabriel has made an unexpected acquaintance. Because Q is really bad at not sticking his omnipotent fingers where he should not.Alternatively:A holy Trickster God and an almost all-powerful entity with a soft spot for mischief share a bottle of Viking Ale and a conversation.
Relationships: Gabriel & Q
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	The Strand Of An Infinite Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, I’m ready to admit that this is a really weird idea. However, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write it down. I love both Q’s and Gabriel’s characters and I think they have a lot in common, despite the obvious differences. I thought that, this considered, the could have some interesting conversations, made of cryptic allusions and non-said things. They’d totally get along, even if they wouldn’t openly admit it. After all, it’s always so hard to find someone who can truly understand you.

Almost all the beings in t he  known universe, and in the unknown part s of it too, look at the stars as if they  are the most gorgeous things they  will ever see in their short, often meaningless lives. Even the ones who  don’t find themselves captivated by the view of the mostly endless expanse of the heavens still have some feelings towards those so faraway , bright lights, be it a sense of unfulfillable longing or a moderately strong dislike. There  hasn’t been a single being in the story of the universe, of  _ any _ universe, who  hasn’t turned to the sky at least once  during their existence, to plead or curse, to thank or demand, with joy or pain, sharing peace or bringing war. Every life that  has been born inside the almost  limitless immensity of space  is destined to share a  bond with it, whether they like it or not, whether they realise it or not. It’s  an eternal, unchangeable  constant ,  a law that  will keep on rul ing over every thing even af ter one particular universe has run its course and collapsed back on itself, leaving  its spot to the newborn one that  will raise from its  metaphorical  ashes.

That  undeniable  fascination, though,  could lose most of its power when you had already seen  thousands of worlds  raising and falling, developing and decaying, and when you knew that there were beings even more ancient than you were who had watched  _ millions _ of universes through their eternal recurrence. The stars themselves  didn’t look so  forcefully  _ special _ when you had held the biggest supernova ever seen in the palm of your hand  without getting burnt , when  _ you _ were the one with the power to both create and collapse them . Light was just a stream of particles, as easy to manipulate and twist as any other. There was no deeper meaning, no deeper feeling in it for those who could control every thing it was and  what it  did.  _ They _ were the ones who could have  fabricated , if they had wished, that  very  same meaning  that  other , lesser lifeforms sought so desperately. There was a particular race that had come to call space “the final frontier”, when instead that definition was nothing but the umpteenth built-up mirage created by their limited minds.

However, there was also one element that could surprise even a being who was  _ beyond _ time and space, who  _ existed _ outside them.  _ Life _ , in all its forms and shapes and meanings. While it was true that many were ridiculously predictable, boring to death and disgustingly insignificant, a waste of energies for the universe that harboured them, experience had taught him, not in a completely pleasant way, that  there were  a  few existences whose unforeseeable de velopment was worth the trouble to navigate among the boredom of the most, to keep a watchful eye on those  material dimensions his kind did no longer belong to. A  _ few _ lives that held the chance to learn even for someone who had  existed for  thousands of ages. Not that he would have ever openly admitted it. Not yet, not so easily. Most of his fellows would have mocked him, if he had shared such insights, and he didn’t wish to be their laughing stock. Not more than he already was.

A presence abruptly materialised next to him, not unexpected enough to surprise him, but still sudde n enough to break the lazy train of his thoughts. The entity rolled th e eyes he didn’t possess in his current form , but didn’t turn to face his guest, choosing instead to just curtly address him . He didn’t even try to hide his annoyance . “ We discussed this.  You shouldn’t be here.”

“And you shouldn’t know that I’m here,” was the easy comeback, smirk  perfectly audible in the words. “We discussed that too, didn’t we?”

That exchange had quickly become some sort of ritual greeting for them,  replacing any stereotyped “hellos” they could have chosen to use. It was one of the reasons why they got along so well, or at least as along as two  beings as different as they were could. They both had a deep despise for routine and clichés. There was no worse way to make an eternal existence  that already had so little novelties to offer even  _ duller _ .

“Hard for me not to know something when I’m supposed to be mostly  _ omniscient _ ,”  t he entity talked back, this time accompanying his words with the equivalent of a glare, which however didn’t carry the heat that his words suggested it should have. “Not to mention that a… _ peculiar _ presence like yours is hard to miss . It’s a wonder no one else has noticed you yet .”

“I’ll take that as a compliment . And I guess I do have you to thank for my anonymity ,” the newcomer laughed, clearly unfazed by the hint of displeasure with which he had been addressed. “ Also, _ mostly _ omniscient is quite the key word here, isn’t it?”  Somewhere in the blinding mass of light his being consisted in a flash of golden mischief passed. “Plus, I’m brought to think that no one is really omniscient. I’ve met plenty of beings, of  _ gods _ who were supposed to  be, but in truth? They  don’t know everything, but  just  more  than most. Even Dad isn’t all- knowing , and he created the universe I come from.”

“You know what you don’t need to be omniscient to be  certain of? ” Was the curt retort, but amusement was sparkling under the cutting edges of the voice that spoke it, there for everyone attentive enough to see. “ The fact that you can be a huge pain in the ass for everyone. ”  In a faraway and yet very close system, a sudden flare lashed out of the star at its centre, the flames grazing lightly the deserted planet that orbited the closest to it. “ And that you  _ thoroughly _ enjoy it.”

His unexpected guest seemed unimpressed by his show. He was aware of the difference of power existing between them, but he had taught himself not to let such things bother him much s long time before. Moreover, he had by now come to thing of the two of them as companions of sort, two mostly eternal beings who could enjoy each other’s company enough to tolerate their getting together in small doses.

“I won’t deny it , since we’re being honest here , but that’s rich coming from  _ you _ ,” he talked back smoothly ,  his tone refusing to lose its smugness. “ Being a pain in the ass, and never of the fun kind, is basically your  _ job _ . At least I get to choose when to be a decent company . You’re just plainly  _ insufferable _ .”

The entity arched the eyebrows he didn’t have, sparks of light coursing through his much wider, brighter being. “That’s hardly accurate, because I can assure you I can be the  _ best _ company if I wish to. It’s others who cannot appreciate me as much as they should. But still … _ Touché _ , Gabriel.”

“Fine, fine, you’re not  _ that _ bad when you don’t chose to be. But you gotta admit that you aren’t the easiest person to be around, are you , Q ?” Gabriel pointed out, with another golden  gleam . He twirled in the void, the tips of one of his immaterial wings brushing a relatively close star.  “Now, will you stop being so  _ salty _ if I told you that I brought a  gift? One that requires hands, a mouth and a stomach to be  appreciated . If you don’t mind doing the trick? My powers don’t exactly work well in this reality.”

The sound of snapping fingers, created for nothing but show and not because it was necessary, echoed when no kind of sound should have been audible, followed by a bright flash of light. The endless darkness suddenly filled with different colours and hues , which quickly shaped into the forms of a  the large room of what had to be a café on some Space Station. The large windows showed the expanse of the same void they had been fluctuating in, the stars piercing through it as unreachable beacons on the other side of a black ocean. The place was busy, with people coming and going, chatting and enjoying their drinks, at the end of their shift or  right before  its start, or passing the time as they waited for their next transport to arrive.

Q waved a hand and conjured two glasses, not sparing a  single  look neither at the stars nor at the chatting beings who surrounded them,  just as no one in the crowd bothered to acknowledge them, seeming unaware of the pair  that had  suddenly materialise at  the table set in the furthest corner of the room.

“I don’t understand why you insist on  _ bringing _ me this stuff when you know well that I can materialise everything I wish for , even the  _ impossible _ , at will ,” he stated rolling his  now human eyes and crossing his arms over his usual  Starfleet uniform . Despite hardly being the only one in a  officer’s outfit, his anything but military stance  would have managed to  make him stand out in the  crowd, if he had allowed them to be noticed . Never as much as  the archangel’s outdated  Earthen clothes of course. The humans who went around in boots and leather jackets nowadays could be counted  on the eight fingers of a  Raksakian’s hand. “ And so can you , to an extent . Some mortals say that it’s the thought that counts…So why not just use that instead of going through the trouble of doing things… _ manually _ ?”

Gabriel’s golden orbs mimicked the exact movement of the entity’s. “That’s exactly the point.  I didn’t snap  _ this _ into existence. I went back in time and purchased it ,” he talked back, unscrewing the bottle he was holding. It’s design was clearly old, if not  _ ancient _ ,  and yet it looked somehow new, barely a few months old, the  Viking runes that decorated the leather  it was made of perfectly readable . The material even held its faint characteristic smell. “ Best  ale in… _ ever _ . When ever I try to reproduce  it myself, the order of the molecule s is never quite  _ right _ , not even  when it’s completely identical. Maybe if I tried to create it  _ their _ way I’d get it right. I should try sometimes. ” His expression turned pensive for a moment as he poured some of the amber liquid in glasses the entity had produced. “ There is a certain…something humans managed to add to it, when they made  it with their own hands . ”

Q scoffed loudly, but still picked up his drink and sniffed it. Eating and drinking wasn’t something he tended to indulge in, even if the frequency with which he performed those acts had increased since the last time the  Continuum had thrown him out and made him human. The sensation was curious and not so unpleasant when you didn’t have to deal with the consequences of assuming material nutrients.

“ I don’t sense such a big difference ,” he declared, after having swallowed a small sip. The taste of the alcohol was particularly strong,  _ raw _ even, but he knew that it was supposed to be. It was part of the whole experience. The aftertaste was on the bitter side, not too bad all considered, even if he usually enjoyed sweetness better. As different as the ale was, its bitterness reminded him of the few seeps he had stolen from time to time, unseen and unperceived, from a certain  Starfleet Captain’s cups of tea.  “ I think your judgement is impaired by the…fondness you developed for the humans of your reality. Or rather, for a few of them.”

Once again, Gabriel looked unfazed by the provocation. He and the entity often used the same tactics to get reactions out of others and he refused to fall for his own tricks, no matter how well they were performed. “ _ Again _ , looks who’s talking,” he pointed out with a huff, taking a much more generous gulp from his glass. The taste brought back good memories of the old times when he was openly regarded as the Norse Trickster God and worshipped as such. Fun, interesting times and he found himself almost missing them occasionally. There were  _ very _ bad  memories too, attached to that era, but he chose not to dwell on them. As useless as it was on the long term, ignoring unpleasant realities did wonders not to spoil a present mood.

“ And don’t start with how I have died,  _ twice _ , for them ,” he resumed , waving the index of his free hand . He couldn’t deny that his companion had struck a nerve and that he wasn’t too happy to be reminded of the consequences of his choices and of his failures, but the regret that came with them wasn’t strong enough to make him wish he had acted differently. Those two reckless humans had taught him that free will wasn’t a delusion as he had been brought to believe , that history wasn’t set in stone. He could  _ choose _ what to do with himself, who, to be, without even having to steal someone else’s identity. The price had been high, to the point of being almost unacceptable, and yet he wouldn’t have made the difference he had if he hadn’t chosen to give it a try. And now he wouldn’t have been enjoying the views of another universe and the company of a being who could have easily twisted the fabric of space and time for him, had he asked him to.

His lips curled in a grin as he abandoned his thoughts to  focus back on their conversation. Now it wasn’t time to get lost in the contemplation of existential matters. More powerful or not, he refused to lose that round of bantering, especially when the entity was being so arrogantly sloppy about it. During their earlier meetings they had exchanged several stories, some in details, other vaguely, and  they had been enough to teach them both how to use the pieces of information at their advantage . “ You went through a more or less equally inconvenient share of troubles for  _ your _ humans. Or rather, for a bunch of them .” His golden eyes narrowed, a spark of slyness touching them .  “ Might even say  _ one _ .”

As much as he would have preferred avoiding such an obvious reaction, Q found himself scowling at that last sentence.  It was an indigestible truth, one of those he liked ignoring because it was much easier and much more convenient than acknowledging them. For that reason, and for many others, he didn’t like having any of them rubbed in his face.  The Continuum already did a far too good job at using his “obsession” for mortals against him.

“ Did you come here just to banter and try to get on my nerves?” He demanded, in a tone that was  _ almost _ hostile.  The archangel knew what a thorny subject that was for him and, if he was any wise, he would have backed off before things went downhill. They might be on mostly good terms, they might even be on their way to becoming friends in a sense, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t have been ready to send the other back to his universe,  _ permanently _ . After all, it would have been his duty to do so, since his companion wasn’t supposed to have never left his reality in the first place.

Gabriel seemed to have guessed his thoughts, because he lifted his hands in what was supposed to be a pacifying gesture. “Gee, how  _ touchy _ ,” he commented, but this time there was no bite or malice in his words. “ I  came here , as I did all the other time, because I can’t escape back into  the part of my  reality where I’d like to be . I’m supposed to be sleeping through the rest of  _ eternity _ , but I think that you know me enough by now.  _ No way _ I can stay  put for  that  long. ” The prospect was  _ beyond _ unappealing. It was  _ unbearable _ , now that he was aware of what kind of future he was looking at. Hadn’t he been woken up in the first place, it would have been different, because he would have been oblivious to his fate. However, since he wasn’t, all he wished for was to get out of the Emptiness he was trapped in. And, if he couldn’t do that stepping back into the living part of his universe, he was willing to accept to have a peek into another from time to time. It would have kept him from going crazy until he had figured out a more permanent solution.

“ Plus, you have no right to complain, since me being here it’s  _ your _ doing. ” He remembered it so well, despite the haze of the first moments. A foreign light, charge with an equally alien power, sending a shock through his whole being , bringing him back from an oblivion that wasn’t supposed to ever come to an end. One moment later, he had found himself among stars that were at the same time incredibly familiar and yet  ever so slightly off.“ _ You  _ came to poke your head into the Empty and accidentally bumped into me. So, shame on you.”

“I was  _ bored _ and I wanted to do something sort of new .  Not that one could ever call that bunch of sleepy blackness “entertaining” , mind you,” Q muttered under his breath, hiding his words in his glass, even if he knew that the archangel could hear him perfectly. He wasn’t supposed to go and peek into other realities , let alone  _ interfere _ with them, unless they were a deviant of his own that had been created for one reason or another .  It was against the laws of the Continuum, but he had  _ never _ been too good at respecting those. Still, even he knew that they were there for a reason and that was why he had the decency to exert some basic damage control when he broke them .  “ And you shouldn’t  say it ’s a shame. You should be on your knees,  _ thanking _ me because  you  _ owe _ me for partially getting you out of there. I, instead, have  _ all _ the rights to complain because I’m stuck with Putin up with you .”

“Oh, shut up. ” Gabriel waved a hand, rolling his eyes, before refilling both their glasses. That was an example of the entity’s “ feel lucky and bow to my detached magnanimity because I could have left you in your misery but I chose to show you generosity instead” act at its finest. A pompous show of arrogance, but that was what it was. Part of the mask his companion chose to wear to hide his real thoughts and attitude. Not that Q wasn’t a  self-centred , presumptuous jerk, because he was, but that was just a fraction of his infinitely complex character. And the archangel would know, since he often  did the same, preferring to take up the role of he Trickster instead of being open about whom he truly was.  “ Y ou  _ like _ me , Q . Otherwise we wouldn’t be here clinking glasses and talking about  everything and nothing. In the literal sense.”

It was Q’s turn to roll his eyes and he grumbled a few, incomprehensible sounds under his breath, but his gestures and the look on his face left no doubt on the fact that he was  mocking the words his companion had just spoken. “Whatever,” he added in the end, folding his hands in front of him on the smooth surface of the table. “Your company isn’t completely unpleasant. So what? No need to feel special. You’re hardly the only being I’ve come to tolerate.” A glimpse passed in his dark eyes,  far  warmer than his tone had been. “ Besides, I dare to say that the feeling is mutual, isn’t it?”

Gabriel snorted, in both amusement and exasperation, but still nodded in agreement. “So it seems. Even if I can  _ hardly _ believe it,” he admitted, not without a touch of sarcasm. “What a pair we are. It does make me wonder.”

The entity’s lips curled up in the shadow of a grin, reflecting the feeling concealed in the archangel’s golden orbs. “Oh, I do wonder too.”

Silence settled between them for several long minutes after that and they finally turned to have a look at the place Q had chosen for their little reunion. Some of the crowd had flooded away, leaving the room quieter and emptier. The night cycle was ticking away towards its later hours and soon they would have been the only ones left. Gabriel couldn’t help musing how different, despite the similarities, his companion’s approach towards  the lives of his reality was, compared to his own. He  had always  been  mingling with others , even in his periods of chosen isolation. His existence had always been connected to someone else’s, mortal or not, both in Heaven and later as a pagan god. In a way, he acted much more human when it came to  his relationship with the universe he belonged in.

His gaze touched a few of the figures scattered around the room, taking in the variety of their forms, colours and idioms. Sure, Q had the Continuum, he was constantly connected to his kind in a way, not unlike angels were connected to each other. However, he tended to keep his distances from them too and he was never fully there in his material world either, forced as he was, at the same, to transcend it and to have his being woven in the fabric of reality. No wonder he chose to stand above everything and everyone. It made it easier to deal with the solitude that had to come with such peculiar position. And yet, it still had to be very  _ lonely _ , something the archangel could  _ easily _ empathise with. It was how he had felt, after having fled from what was left of his home.

“I could break you out of there, if you asked nicely enough,” Q voice cut through both his thoughts and the silence. His tone was contemplative, coloured with just a small bit of detached interest, despite the heavy significance of the offer he was making. “ My power don’t fully work in your world, but I can devise a way, from here. It wouldn’t be too hard to open a gate on another part of your universe. I could send you there, instead of sending you back in the Empty. Your… _ entity _ _ ,  _ or whatever it is,  wouldn’t even reali se what happened.  _ Ever _ . Because I’m  _ that _ clever.” He allowed himself a small smirk, before his expression turned mostly blank again. “G iven the right amount of time,  you could go back  mingling in your world undisturbed . I’m sure you can keep yourself entertained elsewhere till the right moment .”

Gabriel couldn’t hide the flash of surprise that passed on his face. The offer in itself had been sudden, unexpected, even if he  had known all along that his companion had the power to do what he had just said. And while he believed his own words when he said that the entity had taken a like in him, he hadn’t dared to think that such sentiment would have gone far enough to make the other consider to risk ending up in trouble with his people for his sake. Because it had to be some sort of generous favour, since he didn’t see what kind of benefit Q could have got out of freeing him from the Empty. Especially at the cost of breaking some billions-years-old rule.

“ Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but… You have more pressing business to take care of right now. ” A civil war on the horizon. That prospect  reminded him of the darkest period of his life. He knew what it meant having his hands stained with the blood of his brothers and sisters,  having to take arms against your own kind, hearing them dying inside your conscience while bits of your being died with them. It was a cruel kind of agony  he  wouldn’t wish to anyone. “ You can’t afford to mingle and mess with another reality when you have so much at stake with the Continuum. And those affairs might  take _ centuries _ _ _ to be dealt with .”

He paused for a moment, taking another sip of ale and licking his lips , before he shrugged slightly. “ Sure, I could wait. I’m  a bit  younger than you, but I’ve  already  lived through several ages myself. One more wouldn’t be such a big deal.  And I could use some peace and quiet, after all the crap I’ve been through lately. But…” He let his voice trail of for a moment as he turned to look out of the window. If he focused hard enough and allow his mind to wonder, he could see every inhabited planet of that galaxy,  heard the imperfect harmony that life played in its wake.  “Well, the stuff I’m  _ really _ interested  in is happening in  my current time . I’m not completely bound to linear time either, but going back from the future isn’t an option either . It’s a pity, not being able to be part of it.  It doesn’t change the fact that I want out of the  Empty , but it kills the purpose of being in a hurry to do it. Still, I’ll keep the offer in mind for later on .”

“ Suit yourself,” Q replied with a shrug, even if deep down he couldn’t help appreciating the consideration he had been shown. It was a rare  occurrence, since, for the most, people either didn’t understand what he  _ truly _ wanted or simply didn’t care. Being understood and  accommodated was refreshing. “Let me know if you change your mind.” Them his expression took back the contemplative hue he had sported while voicing his offer.  “ They live so  _ little _ , don’t day?  Less than the tim e of the blink of an eye for us .  I t’s such a  _ waste _ to  spend energies on them considering . And you know what’s more frustrating? That  mortality is an inconvenience that we both co uld fix, if we were allowed to. But we are  _ not _ .”

Gabriel chuckled, the sound low and carrying more bitterness than amusement.  “Yeah, there are rules . But there’s free will…For them. For us too, to an extent, even if we’ve been taught to think otherwise. And, besides, aren’t rules made to be bro ken? Where’s the fun otherwise? To hell the consequences.  For you and I,  Q,  for the kind of beings we are, they had never been enough to stop us, have they?”

“ Yeah.”  The entity nodded, his lips curling up again, but just as the archangel’s laughter his grin felt colder than it should have been .  “ Even if  I’ve come to realise that some choice requires more than just some rebellious will and omnipotence.  And that’s a concept I wish I had grasped much sooner.” He rolled his eyes. “And that’s also the matter that, even rules be damned, we can’t exactly fix every inconvenience as we please if  _ they _ don’t want us to in the first place.”

“Mortals and their stubborn heads. Either they demand from us the impossible when we can’t offer it or they refuse us when we come to deliver the imaginable.”

“ _ Beyond _ infuriating.”

They clinked their glasses together, in some sort of mocking toast for their mutual agreement on the subject, and then relapsed back in silence, each other busy with their own thoughts, drinking their way through what was left of the ale. Being quiet was hardly something that fitted their personalities, but they had both been learning that, in the right times, merely sharing a moment in space and time, doing nothing relevant, without any sort of communication, wasn’t bad. On the contrary, it could be more soothing than exchanging humorous chitchat or engaging some sort of activity that required more than  sharing someone else’s company.

Once again, after an amount of time none of them cared to quantify, it was Q to break the stasis, setting down his empty glasses and straightening his posture from where he had slouched in his chair. As nice as not doing anything could be, Gabriel wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stay still for too long. He had been called next kin to chaos in several occasions for a reason after all.

“Since you’re going to be here for a some more time  and since  it’s been a while since my last visit to a cert ain spaceship, would you care ta gging along  and wreck some havoc?” The entity asked, in a tone that suggested that such would have been his designated activity, whether his companion chose to join him or not. All that talking about realities and broken rules had stirred inside him the urge to go and mingle with all that once again. “Or you can go and roam around and I’ll come to get you once I’m done there. As long as you don’t get in some other Q’s radar, you’ll be fine.”

Gabriel composed himself in turn, reaching out to grab the now empty leather flask. “As tempting as snooping around sounds, I think I’ll keep that for next time,” he replied with a budging smirk. “Tell me, instead. What do you mean with “it’s been a while” since you bothered them? A couple of Earthen week s ?  A month?” He knew well that his companion had gone over a year without  visiting his  favourite targets , but he couldn’t resist the temptation to tease. “ Good thing that captain of yours has already  no hair left, otherwise he would have torn  it all out while dealing with you.”

Q rolled his eyes at him, tilting his head on one side and crossing his arms on his chest. “You know, I’m already having second thoughts about my offer. Both of them, actually. Perhaps you not only shouldn’t come with me, but you should  go back to your universe and stay there.”

The archangel huffed out a breath, well aware that, this time, the subtle threat was completely empty. “Again, you’re damn  _ touchy _ at times. One would think that eternity has taught you patience, but they would be  so  wrong . It made you even more sensitive ,” he commented with a fake, exaggerated sigh. Then he grinned again. “I  can’t stay too long, or my absence will be noticed, but…I’d love to have a bit of fun before going back to my prison nap.”

“Now it’s my turn to say “look who’s talking”. Your temper isn’t better than mine most of the times, Gabe,”  the entity shot back, already raising his hand to snap them away. One of those days he would have had to teach his companion a lesson about how wiser it would be for his to watch his words, but not that time. It was a plan that he kept postponing, even if he would have never admitted it. “Shut your trap hole and  follow my lead. I promise that you’ll get a laugh out of what I have in mind that will last till your next visit.”

Gabriel bowed his head in acknowledgement, golden eyes sparkling with defiant amusement, and  Q vanished them in a flash of light. Their glasses remained where they had set them, left behind for a confused waiter to find the morning after, untouched by the Station’s automatic cleaning systems. The man would pick them up and bring them to the recycling unit,  oblivious to  the fact that he was  tiding up the remains of the casual  but hardly insignificant  meeting between two self-appointed gods.


End file.
